The telegraph, even in the West, was a new affair, but it was developing very quickly, much faster than the development of the railroad.

A few years earlier, foreigners had already built ocean-going telegraph lines to Hong Kong, but the development of telegraphy in China was blank until 1858.

In 1858, due to intensive negotiations between China and Britain and France after the end of the war, Britain and France kept going back and forth between Shanghai and Hong Kong, just to go to Hong Kong to send telegrams back to Europe.

However, the British and French suggested that China allow them to extend the telegraph line from Hong Kong to Shanghai, but at that time they were talking about more important matters such as an armistice, so they only mentioned it casually.

However, at that time, Lin Zhe took the telegram to heart, so after the negotiations between China and Britain and France were over, he instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the royal family to see if they could make a telegram.

Because for contemporary Chinese, few people even know what electromagnetism is, let alone the application of telegraph technology, so like railways and so on, you have to find foreigners first.

When those foreigners heard that China was going to build a telegraph line, they naturally raised their hands to welcome it, but later the two sides had some differences on some cooperation, and those foreigners wanted the right to operate the telegraph line.

Naturally, the Chinese side does not allow this, what are you kidding, this telegraph line is a heavy weapon of the militaristic state, how can it be controlled by outsiders.

Therefore, after negotiations between the two sides, the Shanghai Telegraph Company, which was jointly invested by the Imperial Family Industry and foreign capital, was changed to the Imperial Family, which contributed most of the funds, and the land along the telegraph line occupied 60 percent of the shares and was in charge of the management rights. Foreign investment, on the other hand, is based on technology. Raw materials, engineering personnel, as well as part of the capital into shares.

But foreign capital proposed. In addition to the first two years, dividends must be paid from the third year onwards. In addition, dividends must be gradually increased, and if the profits are insufficient due to the poor management of the royal family's property, either the royal family will pay the dividends of foreign capital in advance, or the foreign shares will be repurchased with three times the amount of investment.

Although the terms are harsh, but who makes themselves unskilled, and it is also related to the problem of ocean line connection, if other people's transoceanic telegraph lines do not take you to play, it is difficult for you to re-lay a submarine cable from China to Europe.

After the relevant agreement was reached, the Shanghai Telegraph Company laid the submarine cable from Hong Kong to Shanghai. It was built at the end of 1859, allowing Shanghai to exchange telegraph information directly with London, Europe.

Since the beginning of this year, the royal family industry has once again exerted its strength, and even dug its own corners, poaching many people from the Shanghai Telegraph Company, and then established the Royal Telegraph Company, which is wholly owned by the royal industry, and gradually began the construction of the national telegraph network.

Its first domestic telegraph line was the telegraph line from Shanghai to Dangtu.

However, there were many problems when repairing the telegraph, the most important of which was that the people along the telegraph route often stole telephone poles and telegraph lines, and sometimes the telegraph company had just laid a few kilometers of lines. But as soon as it was completed, it was stolen by the local people, and the staff of the angry Royal Telegraph Company screamed.

In the end, it was the Palace Affairs Department that came forward to request the cooperation of the military and local governments along the line!

The military's cooperation was of limited significance, and the local garrison focused at best on the telegraph stations along the route. However, the troops have their own station, and it is impossible to patrol outside every day in peacetime, so cooperation in this regard mainly depends on the local government. By the local patrol officers, to be exact.

In order to curb the theft of telephone poles and telegraph wires by the public. Local officials along the route were given an official letter from the palace affairs department, asking them to strictly manage the people under their rule. At the same time, the Palace Affairs Department also found the Ministry of Justice and asked the Ministry of Justice to add a special crime of destroying communications-related facilities to the Criminal Law, which is a very serious crime and is sentenced to three years in prison, with no upper limit.

If it is a special period such as war, the destruction of traffic facilities is directly punished as treason, and it is 100% a dead word!

After several months of severe crackdowns, those local officials went to the countryside twice for three days to propagate and arrested more than 300 people, more than 100 of whom were found guilty of vandalism and theft, and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 20 years.

In recent years, the empire has become more and more fond of using sentenced criminals as coolies, and basically many prisons are empty and there are no prisoners.

After such a strict rectification, it can be regarded as a preliminary curb, large-scale theft of wires and poles, and the telegraph line from Shanghai to Dangtu can be regarded as able to be successfully constructed.

Nowadays, the telegraph line has been under construction in many sections, and it is expected that by the end of 1860, when Tu and Shanghai will be able to communicate directly, Nanjing, as the capital, even has a telegraph room.

In order to make all kinds of administrative naming widely spread, Lin Zhe also set up a special telegraph room in the Imperial Palace, the High Command, the Prime Minister's Office and other government agencies, although the current telegraph line is only limited to Dangtu to Shanghai, and other places cannot be reached temporarily, but the investment in telegraph is much smaller than that of the railway, and the time required to build is shorter, and it does not need the support of basic industrial capacity.

The Royal Telegraph Company planned to build a number of trunk telegraphs within three years, namely the submarine telegraph line from Shanghai to Tianjin, along the Yangtze River to the west, connecting Shanghai, Nanjing, Jiujiang, Wuchang, Chongqing, and Chengdu.

Then there is Guangzhou as the starting point, connecting the cities along the Xijiang River and then all the way into the Yunnan region.

Starting from Tianjin, it connects to Beiping all the way to Mongolia.

There are also along the Yellow River, etc.

These main lines are used as base points, and then they are connected to some major cities.

The entire telegraph network was much larger and denser than the planned railway network!

After all, the construction cost of the telegraph line is incomparable with the cost of railway construction, and the construction of the railway has to open mountains and bridges, and it is necessary to lay sleeper rails, and the amount of work is very large.

As for telegraph lines, a telephone pole should be erected at intervals of tens or even hundreds of meters, and even the kind of cement pillars are not used, just wooden pillars, and then connected with wires.

So even wires and telegraphs need to be imported. But the overall cost is not too much, and it is very profitable to run a telegram.

Nowadays, telegrams are all counted word by word. The price is very expensive.

After the telegram is repaired, the time to pay for itself will be faster!

This is also why the Royal Telegraph Company dared to say that the basic trunk line would be completed within three years. Within five years, the country's major cities will be covered, and within ten years, every state capital in the country will have a telegraph.

In fact, Lin Zhe didn't like the wired telegraph very much, if it weren't for the current technological development is not in place, and there is no wireless telegraph abroad, he would have used wireless telegraphy directly, how convenient it is, and he can directly engage in some wireless telegraph machines to communicate throughout the country, which is faster, more convenient, and cheaper than building a wired telegraph network.

It's a pity. There is no trace of wireless telegraphy yet.

Whether it is the railway or the telegraph, it can be regarded as a clear sign of the changes that Lin Zhe brought to China in this era.

With the further development of the domestic industrial economy, Lin Zhe's expectation that the national railway and telegraph can be completed after all.

In the second half of 1860, when there was a construction upsurge in all aspects of the empire, although it was affected by the large-scale reduction of military spending, the military action did not stop.

In the summer of 1860, after the Chinese army conquered Chengdu, it continued to encircle and suppress the remnants of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!

In September, the Chinese army encircled and annihilated the last main force of the Taiping Army of more than 40,000 people in Yazhou Prefecture, Sichuan. Killed a number of important generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, including Chen Yucheng.

In October, also in Yazhou Mansion, the Chinese army surrounded the last few thousand men of Hong Xiuquan and Shi Dakai's remnants, after a fierce battle. Shi Dakai was defeated and died, and after seeing that he could not escape, Hong Xiuquan committed suicide by poisoning.

Since then. In the past decade, the whole of China has been turned upside down, and directly led to the official collapse of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which led to the rise of Lin Zhe and the establishment of the Chinese Empire.

With the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The entire territory of Sichuan was captured by the Chinese Army, and the Fifth Army continued to purge the remnants of the Taiping Army in Sichuan and neighboring places. bandits, all kinds of civilian armed forces, etc., to ensure that after the military ceases large-scale operations, the empire is able to exercise administrative rule over the whole territory of Sichuan.

In the northwest, although the progress of Bian Chengxun's Sixth Army was relatively slow, it was victorious and steadily advancing!

In the first half of this year, the Sixth Army entered Xinjiang from the Hami area of Xinjiang, and launched its first battle with Agubai's army in the Hami area.

However, in May, on the grounds of preventing Aguba's further invasion of the north, the Russian side forcibly sent troops to seize Talba, Ili and other northwestern Xinjiang regions despite the strong opposition of the empire.

However, in response, the 14th Infantry Division of the empire launched a large-scale sweeping operation in the Outer Khing'an Mountains, and many armed clashes with thousands of people broke out with the Russian army in the Outer Khing'an Mountains area north of the Heilongjiang River, seizing more than 15 immigrants and military strongholds from the Russian army, and dispatching a large number of Han immigrants from the Zhili area to further increase the effective control of the Outer Khing'an Mountains area.

At the same time, the navy organized the fourth artillery detachment of inland river and coastal combat vessels operating in the Heilongjiang valley and along the coast, which was responsible for operational affairs in the Heilongjiang valley and destroyed and attacked the few combat vessels of the Russian army in the Heilongjiang valley, thus initially controlling the navigation safety of the Heilongjiang valley.

However, even if the Empire's actions in the Outer Khing'an Mountains region could hit Russia, it would not be possible for the Russians to spit out Ili in vain, so if you want Xinjiang, which has been mixed with British, Russian, Agubo and other forces, there is no other way than to let the Sixth Army enter it.

Therefore, beginning in the second half of 1860, the Empire began to increase its support for the Sixth Army, and reinforced the Sixth Army with more than five recruits to replenish the personnel losses of the Sixth Army.

As a result, the strength of the Sixth Army was restored to its previous full strength, including the Eighth Division and the Ninth Division.

In addition to the above-mentioned infantry units, there is also the Second Cavalry Brigade with the Third Cavalry Regiment as the backbone, supplemented by the 13th Cavalry Regiment, and four cavalry battalions recruited locally in the Shaanxi and Gansu regions under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi and Gansu garrison commands.

After receiving a large amount of support from the rear, Bian Chengxun continued to lead the Sixth Army deep into the hinterland of Xinjiang, recovering Turpan in July and the city in early August.

In September, nearly 20,000 men of the Sixth Army arrived outside Dihua City!

On the opposite side is the 30,000 main force under the command of Agu Bai, waiting solemnly!

A decisive battle between the main forces of the two sides is about to begin! (To be continued.) )